A Florida judge called both Apple and Google's Motorola Mobility out in court, saying that neither of them really wants to resolve these patent matters.

U.S. District Judge Robert Scola -- a federal judge in Miami, Florida -- said that Apple and Motorola Mobility are wasting the court's time with patent infringement lawsuits that they have no intention of solving.

“The parties have no interest in efficiently and expeditiously resolving this dispute; they instead are using this and similar litigation worldwide as a business strategy that appears to have no end,” said Judge Scola. “That is not a proper use of this court.”

Judge Scola's main issue is that Apple and Motorola Mobility currently have over 180 claims regarding 12 patents and are arguing over the meaning of over 100 terms.

“Without a hint of irony, the parties now ask the court to mop up a mess they made by holding a hearing to reduce the size and complexity of the case,” wrote Judge Scola. “The court declines this invitation.”

The court has given Apple and Motorola Mobility four months to narrow the case down, and if they fail to do so, the case will be put on hold until all disputes over terms are resolved.

Apple and Motorola Mobility have been tossing patent infringement lawsuits around since 2010. Many see these cases as a way of struggling for market share and pushing the competitor's products out rather than attempting to solve real issues.

It's comical to me to imagine them being instrumental in moving the industry to mobile without a lick of innovation. That itself would be a success story, lmao. The entire industry shifted, other industries shifted, monoliths were cracked..... but not because of anything new. Laughing out loud.

Success is a combination of innovation, functionality, usability, and marketing. Just because a product is successful doesn't necessarily mean it has all of these traits.

Apple is great at marketing (so is Microsoft, though not as much anymore). And they're also exceptional at usability (I'd say probably the best for the average lay person). Innovation is kinda so-so - they do a pretty good job of taking stuff that is already available in industry but hasn't been widely adopted yet, and packaging it into something that's simple for regular people to use. But they didn't necessarily invent the stuff, like Samsung/LG develooped OLEDs, or Seagate increases HDD storage density, or Intel improved 3D lithography. Outside of UI design, Apple is more of a parts assembler than an actual innovator. They're just really smart about which COTS parts they pick for their devices. Functionality is poor - they tend to leave out or cripple features which come standard in competing products.

And it's a bit of a stretch to say Apple were instrumental to moving the industry to mobile. PDAs and multi-function phones were already well-established industries before the iPhone. It was pretty clear by the early 2000s that the two were on a collision course and were going to merge. The early Palm and Blackberries were the initial result (incidentally, HTC originally made a name for itself with its PDAs). Apple just happened to have the first mega-hit after this merger. If they hadn't been around, the LG Prada probably would've been much more successful. And the industry would've rapidly followed to reach where we are today. As LG's Prada and Samsung's internal docs which Judge Koh barred as evidence indicate, many companies had iPhone-like phones in the design phase before the iPhone was ever announced.

A stretch, you say. PalmOS took 10 years to move 30 million units. iOS did 500 million in 5. If you're keeping score, that's roughly a 17:1 ratio. We may need to have a sidebar about the definition of the word "stretch," lol.

Your argument is simply that you wouldn't describe the things Apple has brought to the table using the word "innovation." They uniquely configured 3rd-party components to a distinct design language that got copied 'til kingdom come, but that wasn't innovation, it was just "smart." So smart that an entire "Ultrabook™" segment was created. No innovation, though.

You've already admitted that Apple has introduced unique and superior UI and usability design. But I guess to you an innovation is an invention, and apparently UI designs can't be invented. People laud the ability to use widgets in Android, but Apple invented widgets so I guess innovation has to be some other kind of invention.

I honestly don't like going on and on about this. I really don't want to be that guy. It seems really obvious to me that Apple has in fact innovated some things, but I guess it's difficult for people to admit that given how antagonistic and unlikeable Apple has been. Personally, I tend to prefer facts to feelings.

Konfabulator co-founder Arlo Rose claims to have invented the widget, but the concept emerged years before Konfabulator shipped.

Some claim Apple invented the widget. The company's "Desk Accessories," conceived in 1981 and were small programs that brought useful tools and innovative multitasking to a non-multitasking environment. The whole widget craze was predicted by the CEO of the company that invented it. The CEO was none other than -- wait for it! -- Bill Gates, and the company was, of course, Microsoft Corp.

"Paying an extra $500 for a computer in this environment -- same piece of hardware -- paying $500 more to get a logo on it? I think that's a more challenging proposition for the average person than it used to be." -- Steve Ballmer